Valoración por parte del alumnado y en general del curso

The bargaining power of a small coalition party is severely reduced once the coalition negotiations have been completed primarily because every vote in cabinet (except perhaps that of the prime minister, who can set the agenda) is treated equally. A small partner, possessing fewer votes in cabinet, would always lose if cabinet decisions were subject to a formal vote. Therefore, parties usually relied upon goodwill and the debating skills of its senior ministers around the cabinet table. However, parties negotiate formal (but not legally binding) coalition agreements to provide a framework of agreement on policy direction and coalition processes. As a result, agreements have also been designed to constrain the incoming cabinet from deviating government policy and direction from the negotiated agreements (Saalfeld, 2000). These coalition agreements also serve to reduce the reliance on other informal means of brokering deals on every issue during the life of a government.

Coalition agreements have served as both inter-party and intra-party commitment and information devices (Strøm & Muller, 2000). Any opportunistic and disputed changes would require public explanations coupled with any accompanied electoral cost. The agreements also signalled planned policy programmes to the parties’ members and supporters. Supporters have been able to gauge the level of compromise and progress made on their party’s policies. Therefore, protracted coalition bargaining might not be tedious negotiations between parties but more a show to impress a party’s supporters (Laver & Schofield, 1990). As such, a long bargaining process might reflect difficult intra-party discussions rather than inter-party negotiations. However, a long period of coalition negotiation has been usually indicative of a complex bargaining environment and conflicting policy positions which later could lead to inter-party conflict (Grofman & van Roozendaal, 1994; King et al., 1990; Laver & Schofield, 1990).

Coalition agreements have usually included both policy and process issues. But, usually coalition agreements tended to emphasise one of two main aspects: policy or procedures. Policy focused agreements have focused mainly on policy directions and have been quite specific in certain areas. Policy based agreements were common in

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most post-1945 Western European countries, but Austria, and to some extent Portugal and Denmark, devoted a considerable amount of detail to procedural issues (Saalfeld, 2000). In New Zealand, the National-NZ First coalition agreement signed in 1996 was heavily policy based but the Labour-Alliance agreement of 1999 was mainly process based. Agreements on procedure have served as the coalitions ‘constitution’ and often concentrated on the process of decision-making and conflict resolution. Coalition agreements also acted as ‘road maps’ to coalition partners through the term in office, assisting direction in decision-making. However, not all eventualities could be predicted in an agreement that was drafted at the beginning of a government’s term of office. These unforeseen events and crises have contributed to coalition disagreements and this aspect is explored later in this chapter.

Ideological Connectedness

Governments have been observed to better withstand crises if they were ideologically connected (Laver & Schofield, 1990). An ideologically connected coalition was one that had more in common than any other feasible government formation. Therefore, ideologically compact coalitions were more easily able to form because they were more easily able to reach agreement on policies. They also anticipated that they were more likely to withstand the strains imposed upon those governments that needed to take unanticipated and difficult policy decisions.

Parties possessed ideal policy points and policy horizons and government membership was usually delimited by party-specific horizons or thresholds (Warwick, 2000). The ideal point has been described as the policy position most desired by a party or the very best policy outcome desired by the party (Warwick, 2000). However, policy compromise is usually the price parties paid to join coalition governments. As we have seen earlier in this chapter, most politicians and parties were only willing to sacrifice a certain amount of policy. At a certain point, parties stopped compromising and preferred to go into opposition (Warwick, 2000). A party’s policy horizon is the maximum point at which it was willing to compromise policy.

Party positions can be compared to the policy position of the government by means of the squared distance between the party’s policy stance (ideal point) and the policy position of the government (Warwick, 2000). The tendency for a party to join a

government reduces relatively consistently as the policy distance between its ideal point and that of the main government party (formateur) increased. However, if parties’ policy horizons were broad then policy considerations became less important. On these occasions, other factors such as public office assumed greater significance for politicians. This was because parties gained marginal policy difference from joining alternative coalition arrangements.

A coalition that was in equilibrium, was minimum connected, and had little conflict of interest. There would be widespread agreement, between potential coalition partners, on the government’s ideological thrust and the resulting policies. The coalition agreement would have required little compromise by partners who had been able to readily agree to a common policy platform. Therefore, the coalition was more likely to form and importantly to survive (Axelrod, 1970; de Swaan, 1973; M. Taylor & Herman, 1971; Warwick, 2000). This was because parties’ policy thresholds overlapped each other and alternative coalition arrangements could not offer any better policy position to either party.

Cabinet Formation Process

An incumbent party was usually well placed to control the coalition formation process. Their strength can be attributed to two main reasons: governing parties were usually well resourced compared to non-government parties and, by their very situation occupied a pivotal negotiating position (Back, 2003). Incumbents often attempted to minimise their potential government’s policy range and so be better able to implement the main party’s policy. Therefore, such incumbent pivotal parties might attempt to choose coalition partners that possessed similar policies to their own.

As mentioned earlier, smaller parties negotiating strength was greatest prior to the signing of a coalition agreement. However, it was in the interests of all parties (to the coalition) to try and make the relationship work. A long negotiating period might indicate that a large amount of time, energy and even money had been invested in the coalition relationship and any dissolution or non-agreement would see this resource wasted (Strøm et al., 1988). Any new government would incur a similar high cost of reforming and there was little guarantee of achieving an increase in policy wins.

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